I wish I knew or better yet, felt my parents falling in love, returning from WWII on the ship Huddleston where my mother writes on a NY Port of Embarkment autograph card “Yours Forever.” And my dad wrote: “The most wonderful girl in the world.” Maybe I felt it then as she was pregnant with me. Maybe even now?

My mother the nurse.

My dad the diabetic patient.

Sadly, how soon my mother fell out of love, while courageously my dad loved her until their divorce while I attended nursing school.

Despite vowing I would never become a nurse; I changed my major from marine biology to graduate with a Bachelor’s in Nursing (from Cornell University).

My maternal grandmother finished eighth grade only to marry a man with a PhD. In chemistry who became a farmer.

Despite my eldest daughter graduating with a Bachelor’s in Natural Resources (from Cornell University) she went on to receive her RN from John Hopkins in 1999. I remember seeing her in blue scrubs at her first nursing job on the open-heart step-down telemetry unit. No white uniforms for her like mom and I.

Now being in my seventh decade, taking more time to reflect, I stare at long-stored away photos, feeling the distant relationship with my religious controlling mother – yet here we are alike wearing white organza nursing caps; then wonder if I could ever be as brave as her to volunteer to dress in the US Army uniform of WWII, hearing bombs bursting overhead as she cared for wounded soldiers.

Appreciating how unique and similar we humans are.